There’s no particular reason why Murray or Simon can’t be better on clay.  Simon, at the very least, has won tournaments on clay, despite a style that is relatively flat.  One reason Simon has won titles on the red dirt–he plays the smaller events.  Murray’s clay season is 4 titles long.  Once Wimbledon is over, he’s not playing clay despite a few more weeks of clay events after Wimbledon.  Like Nadal and Federer and Djokovic, Murray doesn’t play again until Toronto/Montreal.  Meanwhile. Simon has had success at Hamburg, played after Wimbledon.

Simon’s style is one that most players learn to accept.  He gets lots of balls back.  He’s not looking to dominate the points.  He places the ball in a place that lets you get another shot back.  He doesn’t hit with tons of topspin.  You’re not getting Almagro or Ferrer or South Americans with his style.  You can always try to outhit him, and players have done this, but he’s so quick, he gets lots of shots back.

Despite that, Murray had to feel better about playing Simon than a true clay slugger like Gasquet or Wawrinka, someone whose power might start to bother him.

Murray’s struggles with clay have to do with not having a heavy topspin shot that pushes players back.  The dirt grinders love the shoulder height balls and hit with abandon.  Murray is learning to hit harder, but it’s also a flatter shot.  So, often early in the clay season, Murray struggles with keeping the ball in play, and with the slowness of the surface, players can try to tee off, and put Murray on the defense.

Murray struggled badly in the first set, as he sometimes does, so it was a matter of getting his game together in the second set.  He was down a break early in the second, but eventually played better and broke back twice to take the second set.

The third set started off with an early Murray break, but Simon kept fighting, and the match was tied again.  Murray was able to get to 15-40 on Simon’s serve and have match points at hand, but Simon dug himself out of a hole, and forced the tiebreak.  Murray had an early mini-break lead, but Simon came back.  The tiebreak eventually reached 6-all, but Murray took the next 2 points with an ace and a slice pass that Simon netted.  Murray clearly was in control of the third set and wanted to win, but Simon nearly won the match anyway.

Wawrinka was pushed to 3 sets by Dimitrov.  The Swiss had to adjust his game by being more aggressive and playing more to the Dimitrov backhand.  Tsonga also needed 3 sets to beat Verdasco who is playing better these days, but not outstanding.  These two play in the quarterfinals.

Tomas Berdych needed 3 sets to beat Kevin Anderson who continues to show success on clay.  He’ll face Andy Murray in the quarterfinals.

Rafael Nadal had few problems with Mikhail Youzhny in a straight set win.  He’ll face David Ferrer who needed 3 sets to beat Tommy Haas.

Kei Nishikori, who upset Roger Federer in 3 sets, will face Pablo Andujar who beat Gimeno-Traver when Gimeno-Traver retired before the end of the first set.